What is your life worth?
Though we collectively pretend the sanctity of human life is priceless, we know that’s not true. The value of life fluctuates.
Here, we’ll ask the dangerous question, “How much is a human life worth?” and explore whether some lives are more valuable than others.
Strap in for a complex, eye-opening ride!
How Much is a Human Life Worth?
We say we can’t put a price tag on the value of life, but we do it every day.
Dangerous jobs like coal miners and oil rig operators command hefty salaries. The tradeoff? You risk your life when you work there.
On the plus side, the people who work in these jobs consciously decide to risk their safety for a paycheck, and their companies usually do everything they can to protect life.
What is Your Life Worth?
Would you risk your life for a hefty payout? Would you take one of the world’s most dangerous jobs?
If so, how much would they need to pay you?
Right now, you’re putting a dollar value on your life.
People do it every day. Sometimes they know the risk, and sometimes they don’t.
For example, we collectively know that oilfield workers have dangerous jobs, but did you know that the roofing, construction, and agriculture industries are the most dangerous industries worldwide?
Would you think you’re risking your life if you went into construction or agriculture?
What is Their Life Worth?
When we sit in our cozy middle-class bubbles, working from an office every day, we don’t have to think about the people who do the dangerous work to keep our society running.
How much is the person’s life worth who picks your vegetables in a hot field all day? How much are the people who live in foreign countries, working 14-hour days in sweatshops to make your clothing?
What value do we put on the lives of people who work the hardest job for the lowest pay?
These people often don’t have a choice. They don’t get to decide to risk their lives for six-figure salaries on oil rigs. They’re low-skilled with few options, so they must risk their lives for paltry paychecks (sometimes less than minimum wage) to survive.
We risk other people’s lives to enjoy our creature comforts, and we don’t even think about them.
The Harsh Truth: Society Deems Some Lives More Valuable Than Others
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” – George Orwell, Animal Farm
Despite our pleas that all life holds value, we’ve collectively decided that some lives are more valuable than others.
The value of life depends on a variety of social factors, including:
- Socioeconomic status
- Geographic location
- Race
- Gender
- Cultural Values
- Politics
We can’t decide how much a human life is worth without exposing the harsh truth that the value changes based on these factors.
Socioeconomic Status
Throughout history, we’ve decided that wealthy, influential people are more valuable than the proletariat.
Celebrity deaths are tragic, while nobody even thinks about the hundreds of poor people who died the same day. We send our poor kids off to war while the rich reap the benefits.
The situation is even more dire in poverty-stricken areas. People die of malnourishment and disease every single day, while rich people throw excess food away.
Our society has decided that you don’t deserve to live if you can’t afford to pay for it.
Geographic Location
We don’t care who dies as long as it’s not in our own backyard.
We’ll happily send drones to kill children in far-off lands. We shrug our shoulders at the plight of people who live in poverty-stricken nations without access to food, clean water, or medicine.
It even happens at home. The US features swaths of homeless, many of whom have a mental illness. We don’t care as long as they’re tucked away from the public.
Race
Racism thrives in society.
Racism makes people believe some lives are more valuable than others. Throughout history, humanity has committed atrocities against people from different racial backgrounds, from slavery to genocide.
Even today, we pretend racism doesn’t play a role in life’s value, but we need only look to the backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement to see that some people don’t think black lives matter as much as white lives.
We can also point to the disparate treatment in child abduction cases. White children get plastered all over the news, while indigenous missing children are ignored.
Gender
Societies across the globe deem one gender more valuable than the other. In the worst instances, families commit femicide against female infants because they value males so much more.
Although most aren’t as extreme, many cultures value men’s lives more than women’s. They’ll allow men to harass and rape women with near impunity because they “wouldn’t want to ruin his life.” They protect sexual abusers while rallying against the victim. They keep women out of the public sphere, insisting men are “more worthy.”
Other cultures value women more because they are essential to maintaining civilization. They send the men off to die in war while locking women away. In these cases, neither gender wins. Only the rich and powerful do.
Cultural Values
Different cultures have different ideas of which lives they value. Humans have the horrific capacity to “other” people based on nearly anything: race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, personal values, career choice…etc.
Cultures often latch onto these differences to decide which lives have more value.
In the US, the religious right has latched onto the idea that a woman’s life has less value than the fetus she is carrying. They expect women to sacrifice their health, wellness, personal goals, career ambitions, and even life for the sake of the unborn.
Other cultures value women’s lives more and think that they should be able to do whatever is necessary with their bodies to ensure their health and safety.
Politics
Politics has an outsized influence on which lives are valuable and which aren’t. When we’re at war, our allies’ lives are valuable, and our enemies’ lives are worthless. It doesn’t even matter which is which.
We play politics with people’s lives by installing dictators sympathetic to our causes, supporting allies with atrocious human rights records, and destabilizing regions to enrich our corporations.
The Value of Life
The people who scream the loudest about the sanctity of human life are often the first to sacrifice other people’s lives for their cause.
It’s far easier to claim every life has value than to do any of the hard work needed to protect life.
So what can we do?
Accept that Some Lives are More Valuable than Others
The easiest solution is to accept the harsh truth that some lives are worth more than others.
If you don’t want to change anything, you can stop claiming to value life, shrug, and say, “Yes, I value the lives of “X types of people” over the lives of anyone else.
I don’t love this idea.
While I agree that finding a solution that values all human life equally is nearly impossible, I think we can do much better than we’re doing now.
I’m not a politician, a part of a think tank, or a philosopher, but here are some ways we could shift towards valuing life.
People Before Profits
Many of the problems listed have a universal cause: greed.
Our society celebrates profit above all else. We don’t care who suffers and dies as long as our economy keeps booming.
We need a paradigm shift. Humanity must come before profits.
To start, we can end shareholder supremacy, which forces corporations to act only in their shareholders’ best interests to the detriment of their workers and customers. We could also abolish Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that gave companies unlimited influence in elections.
We could stop celebrating work as the end-all-be-all of human existence and prioritize other things like family, the arts, and humility.
Education
An educated populace can change the world, but the greedy shareholders at the top hate that idea. They keep education restricted to the privileged few because an ignorant population is easier to manipulate.
Education should be free for all.
As it stands now, the poorest kids don’t have the money to pursue a PhD program. They can’t become doctors or lawyers, not because they lack academic ability but because they can’t afford it.
Providing free education to everyone with an aptitude for learning would create a highly educated, innovative populace ready to tackle the world’s problems.
Celebrate Diversity
Diversity makes us stronger. It allows us to gain fresh insights and perspectives we never would have considered.
I don’t know how to fight culturally engrained racism and misogyny. We’ve been fighting these systems for decades, and it seems to be getting worse rather than better.
Fight Systematic Problems
Some lives are worth less than others due to intentional systems that work to keep specific segments of the population at a disadvantage.
Our for-profit prison system punished young black men at alarming rates. Our refusal to enact policies to help mothers maintain their careers while caring for young children hurts women. Subsidizing businesses at taxpayers‘ expense helps the rich get richer. Lack of regulation on food safety, the environment, and consumer protections harms the working class.
We’ve established these policies. We can change them.
Universal Healthcare
Nowhere is it more apparent that the value of human life fluctuates than in the US healthcare system.
People without insurance die of preventable diseases, while the wealthy never have to worry. Thousands of homeless people would have improved outcomes if they could access mental health care or addiction recovery services – but they can’t afford it.
A universal healthcare system would ensure that every person could access the medical care they need to thrive.
UBI
In the US, financial disparities often cause the idea that some lives are worth less than others. A UBI (Universal Basic Income) would help level the playing field.
With a UBI, people wouldn’t have to worry about starving. They could afford the basic necessities they need to live.
Accept Individual Choices
Many of the arguments about the value of life are complex, and there is no good answer. Each person must come to their own conclusion based on their morals and ethics.
We can’t enact laws forcing people to value someone else’s life over their own. Society understands this with self-defense laws but ignores it in other cases.
Anti-abortion laws stand as the most glaring examples. These laws force women to value another life over their own life.
That choice should never be forced on anyone.
We should also end forced conscription laws, as no person should ever be forced to put their life on the line in service to country.
Each person should be able to choose for themselves how much their life is worth.
So, How Much is a Human Life Worth?
Although we want to say “priceless,” we know the harsh truth. It depends.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We could enact changes that would level the playing field to make everyone’s life priceless.